


The Peacable Kingdom

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Blood Brothers, Brothers, Cute, Feels, Gen, Pets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 10:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1645052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a continuation of the story "State Secrets." It is not anywhere near as outrageously fluffy as the first story, though it's still pretty fluffy. It has kittens, and Mycroft, and more. Sherlock and Mycroft and faint traces of pre-Mystrade if you squint.</p><p>The people you love are adorable when they sleep, no matter what....</p><p>Sherlock Does Good. But don't tell him, he'll growl at you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Peacable Kingdom

**Author's Note:**

> Check bottom notes for asterisked items/footnotes.

Sherlock was mildly irked that he and John and Mary had to show ID to get into what was, when it came right down to it, his family home. Still, he didn’t live there any more, and hadn’t for decades, nor did his parents. It was Mycroft’s residence, when he wasn’t staying in the City, and by direct extension it was crammed to the battlements with the kind of security that simply went with Mycroft. Cameras, of course. Bugs. A few special police forces stationed outside. A few MI6 security specialists inside. God knew who was embedded in the household staff.

The IDs were probably the least he could expect.

Once in, though, they were home free. If Sherlock hated being pressed in on by security staff, Mycroft hated it more. Indeed, all the staff appeared to have mastered the art of not being seen. As the three came into the big entrance hall, they might as well have been in an abandoned house.

“Whew,” John said, giving a slow, wispy whistle under his breath. “You jammy bastard. No wonder you were never worried about where rent money was coming from.”

Mary, turning in circles and looking up at the high ceiling overhead, of beautiful hand-painted plaster, gave a breathy little laugh. “Holy cats.”

“Yes, yes. Big. Old. Expensive. If Mycroft were in residence you could tell him and he’d smirk and tell you who did the moldings and who painted the daisy-wreath lozenges, and which of my ancestresses asked for the damned fake Italian cherubs. Me, I don’t care. I’m just glad we don’t have to stay in the hotel while we wait for the car to be fixed.” He skulked along, stripping off his wet coat and dumping it without ceremony over the tall, ornate panel-work newel post.* He leaned over and shook his curls like a dog, sending the sparkle of rain scattering around himself. “Come on. Let’s go to the library and get a fire started, and then I’ll go down to the kitchens and see if anyone can put together tea and get a couple of rooms ready for us.”

He loped down the beautiful parquet floor, and darted sideways through the wide double doors of a room to the left, only to halt suddenly. John and Mary, unprepared, barreled into him and for a slapstick moment all three waved and circled their arms and made little hup-hup noises as they tried to avoid falling. When at last they regained balance, Sherlock hissed, “Shhhhhhhhhh!” then began a slow and wary creep across worn but vivid Persian carpets toward a big leather sofa from which a faint snore arose.

He reached the sofa, and stretched and bent to peer over the back of the couch.

He jumped with a panicked dismay that caused both John and Mary to scramble for weapons they were not, in fact, carrying. Then he just stood there.

“Sherlock?”

“Shhhh!” Sherlock hissed again. He looked back over his shoulder, eyes wide, and gestured the two in, miming “tip-toe.”

They crept silently across the floor, and peeked over the top of the sofa-back.

On the sofa lay Mycroft, on his back, sprawled in alien relaxation. One arm draped bonelessly to the floor. The other curled in a graceful arch up over his head, wrist propped on the crest of the sofa-arm. His head fell sideways, rust forelock tumbling softly in a question mark over his forehead, nose pointed toward the sofa-back. His long body lay limp and relaxed, taking up the full length of the sofa. He was dressed in trousers, a dress shirt, and red braces, and sleek black dress socks. His jacket, tie and waistcoat were draped neatly over an adjoining chair. He was asleep.

John, later, would assess him as having been securely in Stage-4 sleep, out cold and dead to the world. He had to have been—on his chest was curled a little, fat orange tiger kitten who stared up at them with disapproving eyes. A little tortie was curled in the arch of his arm, nose buried in its tail, as deeply asleep as he was, her fur stirring lightly in the breeze of his snores. A vivid tri-color calico was wrapped around one socked foot, forelegs clinging tight, all ten toes lightly arched so that the claws just barely dug in, little sharp milk-teeth gnawing contemplatively on Mycroft’s big toe.

As Sherlock said, if the claws and the milk-teeth didn’t’ wake him up, Stage 4 seemed like a very good guess.

Mary stuffed her fist in her mouth, trying not to laugh. Failing not to laugh. John gave a strangled choke. Sherlock sputtered like a tea kettle boiling over on the hob. The three raced from the room, Sherlock leading the way, until they ended up in the back pantry, where Sherlock slammed the door shut and they all collapsed wailing with laughter.

“My sides hurt,” Mary whined. “Gawd, it’s as bad as when I was carrying the kid. Ow-ow-ow…”

Sherlock and John leaned against the wall side by side, bent over their knees, howling as hard as they had that first night in the hallway of Baker Street.

“Oh, God. Kittens. Mycroft. Kittens,” John moaned, only to start laughing again.

“The socks,” Mary giggled. “And did you see? His toe kept twitching, but he never woke up.”

“Last time I saw him that gone I’d drugged him,” Sherlock said. “That was over ten years ago, and he’s not let me get a chance since then.”

They laughed for a good ten minutes before John finally asked what Mycroft was doing there.

“No idea,” Sherlock said. “I expected him to be in town this weekend.” He slipped his phone out of his pocket, and began to text.

_Mycroft at Holmescroft. With kittens. Is world ending or other event of similar magnitude? SH_

_Oh, goody! He still has them? DI Lestrade and I were worried he’d give them away as soon as he was out of sight. OHMSS**_

_Anthea, are you suggesting you are aware of the feline incursion? SH_

_I was complicit in its arrival! OHMSS_

_Merely complicit? SH_

_Lestrade earned the laurels for the idea. He thought of it, he got them. I merely accomplished drop and detonation of the kitten bomb. OHMSS_

_Lestrade? SH_

_Isn’t it brilliant? OHMSS_

_It’s surreal. Mycroft…and three kittens. It’s hallucinatory. SH_

_You’d know, sunshine. I wouldn’t. OHMSS_

_Don’t get sarky with me. What’s he doing at Holmescroft? SH_

_We had a great week. I guess between that and K*I*T*T*E*N*S he just decided to give himself a treat. OHMSS_

_Well. That’s a bugger. John and Mary and I were planning on staying. Car’s in the shop with stomach gripe. SH_

_Stay anyway. Think of the entertainment potential: You, John, Mary. Mycroft and three kittens. OHMSS_

_It’s…an idea. I’ll consider it. SH_

_He won’t turn you away, you know. He’d die first rather than turn you from your home. OHMSS_

_Don’t try to tell him that. OHMSS_

_Yeah. OK. You win. Hey, Ants? The kittens? Priceless. SH_

He got off the phone and explained their status to John and Mary, while leading them down to the kitchens. Once there they arranged for rooms with the housekeeper, conned the cook out of leftovers from the servant’s tea, and for fresh hot coffee, and ate. Then John and Mary retreated up to their room for showers and a nap.

Sherlock, however, drifted back to the library.

Mycroft slept on, with no sign of waking anytime soon. He stirred. He rolled, and Sherlock watched in fascination as his brother carefully collected the tortie and the ginger kittens and cradled them against his chest as he lay curled like a comma, back to the sofa back, face bent toward his armload of fur. The calico fell to the floor with a mad, despairing scramble, but Mycroft slept on.

Sherlock slipped around the sofa, gently picked up the calico and put it on his shoulder, and built a fire in the fire place, piling high the kindling and apple logs, then turning on the gas starter jet. He walked back over to the sofa, set the kitten down by Mycroft’s ankles, and folded himself down tailor-fashion, like a jointed crane. He leaned his elbows on his knees and watched his brother sleep.

Don’t just see. Observe.

Mycroft had said it often enough as Sherlock was growing up—and after. Sometimes in exasperation, sometimes taunting, sometimes laughing mischievously, sometimes waiting to see if Sherlock would deduce a surprise or a puzzle his brother had left him, sometimes waiting to see if he’d fall for a prank, sometimes waiting for him to understand something that, to him, seemed obvious and transparent…

Sometimes the words had seemed to jerk out of him with the imperative rush of pain.

_“What do you mean, go see Red Beard at the farm?” Mycroft had blinked at him, small eyes shocked and angry and hurt under his tumbled fringe. “What farm?”_

_“The farm Mummy and Father sent him to last year. You know…”_

_Mycroft blinked and scowled. Now, decades later, Sherlock wondered if he’d blinked back tears. He’d loved Red Beard, too. How could anyone not love the great sprawling setter, as ginger as Mycroft himself. Father had called them “the flame tops.” Sherlock would run all over the estate with the dog. Mycroft might take the dog out to run along when he went riding, but more often he waited till evening and lay by the fire with the dog, reading a book, head pillowed on rising and falling ribs, hair and fur blending in a single fiery sweep of color._

_Then, though, Sherlock had only observed the scowl and looked no further. “You know,” he’d said, more tentatively, voice beginning to shake. “The farm…”_

_“You…idiot,” Mycroft had growled, and stood. “Didn’t you notice **anything?** What’s wrong with you? All you do is see—you never observe. There is no farm, Sherlock. There never was.” _

_He’d wheeled, then, and left the room._

_Years later Sherlock scowled, trying to decide if it was imagination or memory that added the sight of Mycroft’s arm rising and sweeping over his eyes. Or the memory of him creeping into Sherlock’s room that night and muttering, “Sorry, baby. Sorry…” before clumping away, a gawky seventeen-year-old “too old to cry.” Not that Mycroft had ever been given to tears…._

He watched Mycroft’s fingers stir through black and rust fur, finger tips tracing pleasure down kitten spines. He remembered Mycroft as a boy, one hand reaching back and stirring the fine feathering behind Red Beard’s ears as the two lay by the fire.

He frowned, watching; seeing; observing.

Mycroft, he thought, was younger than he thought of him as being…and older. He was really too young to carry the burden he carried. He camouflaged himself as older than his true age. He was only now reaching the age when even an exceptional man could have or should have expected to come near the kind of power Mycroft had.

He was growing old, though—growing old faster than Sherlock’s memories of an annoying big brother had taken into account. Even in sleep he looked tired.

Sherlock had watched John like this, when John fell asleep in the chair by the fire at Baker Street. First in the years they’d roomed together, as Sherlock tried to comprehend how the hell he’d come to be living companionably with anyone, much less someone so not-brilliant as John. Later he’d studied him with even greater hunger on the occasional night he’d come over for a night in the old bedroom—when he had to attend a patient at the hospital late, for an emergency; when Mary chased him out for a mini-vacation from her and the colicky baby.

The habit had grown. He’d watched Mary, asleep in the rocker at John’s. the baby dozing on her stomach and the nursing blanket draped over her shoulder. He’d looked at the baby’s face, and been stunned how much there was to see: traces of John, traces of Mary, and, yet, so much that was distinctly her own. Moods. Feelings. Hunger, pain, fear, laughter.

He’d taken to studying Lestrade, seeing his old mentor and handler age—seeing the character come through, shining, stronger and stronger as age wiped away the former prettiness and replaced it with a richer beauty like a patina.

Why hadn’t he looked at Mycroft? Really looked.

He slipped the phone from his pocket and began to text.

It wasn’t for several more hours that Mycroft really began to wake. Sherlock smiled watching him. He squinched his face, wrinkled his nose and rubbed it with the back of his wrist, appearing to scrub away some kitten-fur itch. He stretched and sighed and found the three kittens, curled together at his waist, purring contentedly. Only then did he really open his eyes. He frowned.

“Wha…” His voice was blurry with sleep, rather than its usual crisp, enunciated delivery.  “Wha’ time…”

“Midnight,” Lestrade said, looking up from the book he’d been reading. He was curled in the big old Morris chair by the fire. “Midnight or thereabouts.”

Mycroft frowned at him…then at Sherlock. “What are you two doing here?”

“Car broke down on the highway,” Sherlock said. “Thought I’d see if John and Mary and I could stay over until its fixed.”

“Of course,” Mycroft said in a scolding voice, as he sat up. One hand automatically sheltered the kittens, easing them further back on the sofa and—yes—tucking them close by his thigh. He traced the domed skull of the calico tri, and looked at Lestrade. “There were legal complications?” he said, dryly, then ruined the effect of sardonic questioning with a huge, gape-jawed yawn.

“Nah. Came to deliver something to a friend,” Lestrade said, with a grin.

“Mmm?” Myrcoft absently tidied himself, straightening braces, smoothing his shirt. “Who? And what?”

Sherlock grinned. “Lestrade told me the other week about a friend of his. Trains the sniffer dogs for MI5 terrorism squad. They had a little spaniel bitch who did the core training well—but turned out to hate crowds.”

“Introverted little thing,” Lestrade said. “They were trying to decide where to place her. Has some basic attack training already, you see. Pin and capture.”

“Not a good pick for a family,” Sherlock pointed out.

Mycroft frowned at them both. “You’re up to something.”

“I’m hurt,” Sherlock drawled.

“You’re a clot,” Mycroft countered. “Come on. Don’t drag it out.”

Sherlock whistled. From the far side of Lestrade’s Morris chair something sighed and could be heard scrambling up before…

A chestnut red nose poked cautiously out and big eyes peered from behind Lestrade’s knees.

“They called her ‘Natalia,’ after the Black Widow in Avengers,” Lestrade said.

Mycroft showed no sign of knowing who the Black Widow was—or caring. “Don’t tell me you brought her out here for me,” he said, reprovingly. “You’ve already saddled me with kittens, Lestrade.”

Lestrade grinned. “Thought I’d bring her out, let her meet people. Get a chance to get out of the kennel, see how she fits when it’s not airports and stadiums,” he said. “That’s all.”

None of the three believed it, of course.

Mycroft looked broodingly at the dog. “Don’t stare at me with those big brown eyes,” he scolded—tenderly. “Really, I don’t live here. The cats won’t mind if I leave them down here when I’m in the City. You would.”

“She could stay in your rooms,” Sherlock said, innocently. “Or you could let her stay with me, days. I’d take her out on my rounds.”

“With the street-people? I don’t _think_ so!” Mycroft growled, brows arching—and his hand automatically reached out as he snapped his fingers at the dog. She slipped shyly out, and Mycroft let her sniff his fingers. “If you drag her around to your Irregulars there’s no telling what vermin she’ll come back with. There’s a reason people hire dog-walking services.”

“Maybe just when I’m checking the hot spots,” Sherlock said, forcing back a grin. “I’d take good care of her, Mike. I promise.”

Mycroft patted his knees, offering the dog a chance to brace her forepaws there and get better acquainted. The little spaniel, though, was too well trained for that. She just looked up, eyes huge.

“Poor thing,” Mycroft said, reprovingly. “Goodness, she’s trying so hard to be perfect.”

He leaned over and cradled her in large hands, picking her up and rocking her in his arms.

The kittens woke, and hissed, tails bottlebrushing, eyes huge, little pink mouths showing needle-sharp milk-teeth. Mycroft clucked at them. “Hush, now. She’s just a little baby, only a bit older than you are. You’ll like her. She’ll keep you company in my rooms in town.”

Sherlock was strangling on laughter, by then, watching Mycroft drift inexorably into not only ownership—but a decision that the whole pack was going to commute with him, back and forth between estate and Pall Mall flat.

“He’s going to keep her, isn’t he?” Lestrade chuckled that night, as Sherlock showed him to the room he’d had prepared for the older man.

“Yep,” Sherlock said, satisfied and amused.

“Good,” Lestrade said. “He’s…cute with them.” He glanced at Sherlock. “He’s going to spoil them all rotten, you know.” His look was suggestive.

“He’s a rubbish brother,” Sherlock growled. “Mean rat.”

“Yeah. I can see that,” Lestrade said, cheeky grin firmly in place.

Sherlock and Mary and John and Lestrade had a wonderful weekend, staying through Sunday even though the car was running by Saturday afternoon. Mary and John slept and walked through the gardens. Lestrade, to Sherlock’s interest, seemed to hover near Mycroft, not talking much—usually curled up with a book or watching a video on his tablet, but always nearby, and always watching Mycroft with the pup and the three kittens with bemused laughter in his eyes.

And then there was Mycroft.

_Don’t just see—observe, Sherlock. You’ll miss the important bits if you don’t observe._

His brother talked to animals---a steady babble of conversation. He firmly assured the tortie that she needed a manicure and that tuna was known to trigger allergies in some cats. He told the ginger that he didn’t own Mycroft’s right hand, and that he couldn’t turn the pages if the kitten hung on like that. He told the calico tri that he’d really prefer she didn’t teethe on his toes. He told the pup she was a beautiful girl, and that he didn’t care what the rules had been where she used to live—she could sit on the sofa with the people, now.

He doted. He smiled. He touched.

_“It’s OK, Sherlock. Here, wrap up in the towel and lean on me. It’s too cold out—here. Let me drape my jacket over you.”_

Sherlock had been, what? Six? That seemed right. Six years old and swimming in the ocean until he turned blue. Then Mycroft had toweled him off, wrapped him up, and tucked him under his windbreaker like a bird tucks a chick beneath her wing. When had Mycroft stopped doing that? When Sherlock was seven and Mycroft fourteen? Or when Mycroft was older? When he started attending uni?

Sometime. Sherlock was startled to realize he remembered sitting by Mycroft and leaning against him, only to have Mycroft give that prim little smile that had become his norm, and move away.

 _I don’t think I want to lean on you, now, Mycroft,_ Sherlock thought to himself. But he remembered when he had wanted it…and had raged when it was denied.

The last night Mycroft sat on the leather sofa with the dog beside him, her jaw resting on his thigh. One kitten was curled by Mycroft’s other hip. One slept tightly coiled by the pup’s stomach. The last—the ginger—lay on her spine, over her shoulders. His forefeet were tucked under his chest, his head bowed down. His flame fur complemented her russet gold.

Mycroft held a tablet in front of him with one hand. His reading glasses perched on his long beak of a nose. One hand stroked the dog’s ears.

“Nice, isn’t it,” Lestrade said. “Peaceable Kingdom, yeah?”

Sherlock cocked his head. No—it wasn’t. Outside wars still raged, spies still slipped through shadows, assassins still took aim. Criminal still raised Cain. Eden was a fantasy.

But—Lestrade had a point. Here, for a short time, in a tiny little Kingdom, Mycroft had what he longed for—peace, good will to men. And cats. And pups. And even renegade loose cannon brothers….

Sherlock scowled and pretended not to care. “They’ll be running around the house like a pack of strays in half an hour,” he said, and went out on the back terrace to have a cigarette.

 

 

[ **NEWELL POST IMAGE** ](http://southshoremillwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/staircase-large-starting-newel.jpg)

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> * This is more or less what I have in mind as a panel-work newel post (and I found it using just those search words!) but what I intend is taller by two tiers: there’s another flat panel work tier shaped like a lantern, wide at the top and narrower at the bottom, with a peaked “roof,” and on top of the roof is a hand-turned spindle shaped like a tall, thin minaret. I think there is also some Arts and Crafts style carving on the panels trying to look ostentatiously Medieval, because in spite of Sherlock’s hoo-ha the manor is really High Victorian Neo-Gothic, trying to look all Romantic and William Morris-y, because as Mycroft himself would tell them, the really old parts of the mansion are around back and are a lot less showy….and even they only date back to the late 1600s as most of the place got ground to dust during the Commonwealth, having been claimed several times over by both Roundheads and Cavaliers. But it hadn’t been in Holmes hands then anyway. The Holmeses were merchants who managed to supply vital aid to both sides without either the wiser, and they were granted Holmescroft as a reward at the end of it all, when all that was left was the land and the home farm, and the little Tudor cottage Mummy and Daddy have claimed as “the Dower House.”  
> Um…yeah. I like history and art and architecture. What makes you ask? :P 
> 
> **OHMSS = On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It seemed like a nice signoff for Anthea. XD


End file.
